Greens’ ghosting of Colette during mayoral swansong

Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column with Dara Bradley

Did the Green Party deliberately ‘ghost’ Mayor Colette Connolly (Ind) during her last meeting as chair of Galway City Council last Friday? It would appear so.

The part of the meeting where the mic goes round the table and Councillors take it in turns to congratulate the outgoing Mayor for having had such a wonderful year was never going to be straightforward for Colette.

That’s not because she didn’t have a good year as Mayor, in fairness she did; it’s mostly because she was never flavour of the month with her colleagues. Ideologically to the left, and far left, of most members she shares a ruling mayoral pact with, Colette clashes with Councillors regularly. That’s the rough and tumble of politics.

In fairness to even her arch rivals – and maybe this is also credit to the respect she earned as Mayor – they put their differences aside and all praised Colette for different aspects of her term in office. It wasn’t fake either; most had something positive, however small, to say.

Even those Independents on the right, Declan McDonnell and Noel Larkin, and Fianna Fáil, who argued often with her, said something nice about Colette. Keep your friends close and all that.

It was noticeable, though, that those closest ideologically to her, the Green Party’s two Councillors, Martina O’Connor and Niall Murphy, said nothing. Larkin, the polar opposite of Colette, had the backbone to acknowledge she was fair as chair. But the Greens said nout!

Colette didn’t exactly shower Martina with praise for being Deputy Mayor during the year. She did thank her though. And for the two Greens not to open their mouths about Collette reflected badly on them, especially when they gushed later on about the new Fine Gael Mayor, Clodagh Higgins.

(Photo: Outgoing mayor, Colette Connolly, with the newly-elected Clodagh Higgins. Green Party councillors gushed about the new Mayor but had no praise for Colette’s work during the year, despite being ideologically close to her. Councillors of other persuasions praised the left-wing Independent).

This is a shortened preview version of this article. For more Bradley Bytes, see the June 24 edition of the Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.